Horray for operating cars.
I missed some. My notifications on this thread are only comming intermediatly...likely MS Outlooks new found unreliability these last months and not a forum issue.
I love seeing posts from David of Dearborn too. He is another "Tinkerer Extraordinare". Portable micro- tinplate layouts and the coolest of long forgotten about "gadgety" tin accessories are just a few of his goodies.
Gramps always had plenty of #90s to keep little fingers busily entertained (and slider switches to kill them if you abused the buttons wildly, lol ); and he had the icehouse and car around too. But in my whole life, I only got to see it work one or two times (as with a few items). He felt there was something too delicate about it, or it didn't work very well or something....a mystery to this day because it wasn't " mint".
The stock coral and vibrating car was only used a few times as well, but was there a decade.(his stock tended to stay put or fall over lame).
Coal loaders tended to make a mess, and stray rocks in loco gears just wasn't the kind of thing that appealed to him, but were rather more of a nightmare scenereo for running his nicer trains (white glove stuff). I could run the coal elevator, but milk cars were just plain easier for me to use and clean up after. I cleaned or might be forbidden from the throttle next time...that wasn't really about just the coal though. That was recognition of ownership; respect 
One of the nicest "groups" of cars Gramps had were the various versions of the milk cars. The ones we handled were just so-so. I always liked the looks and action on the aluminum doored cars best but they were way more delicate too. Plus they had the magnetic bottomed cans, so twice as likely to remain standing. We called the plain bottom milk cans "the empties" because they fell over easier
The red, white, and black switcher; what road is that? A striking loco.
